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Landscape Shifting Paradigm for the Endangered Species Act: an Integrated Critical Habitat Recovery Program

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Landscape Shifting Paradigm for the Endangered Species Act: an Integrated Critical Habitat Recovery Program View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of New Mexico Volume 55 Issue 1 Winter 2015 Winter 2015 Landscape Shifting Paradigm for the Endangered Species Act: An Integrated Critical Habitat Recovery Program Sam Kalen Recommended Citation Sam Kalen, Landscape Shifting Paradigm for the Endangered Species Act: An Integrated Critical Habitat Recovery Program, 55 Nat. Resources J. 47 (2015). Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol55/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Natural Resources Journal by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. \\jciprod01\productn\N\NMN\55-1\NMN101.txt unknown Seq: 1 22-JAN-15 11:03 SAM KALEN* Landscape Shifting Paradigm for the Endangered Species Act: An Integrated Critical Habitat Recovery Program ABSTRACT This article explores how the designation of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act provides an opportunity for landscape-level planning to conserve species. The Act’s requirement to designate critical habitat has generated considerable controversy. Some ques- tion its utility, including even those who aggressively pursue species conservation. Other industry and local communities challenge the economic analyses accompanying designations. For many years, designating critical habitat only occurred after litigation, well after the Act suggests designation. The general malaise surrounding the program, therefore, is well documented. Yet policy-makers and schol- ars shy away from crafting innovative proposals for resolving the principal issues hovering around the critical habitat program. This article fills that gap by examining those problems and suggesting how each of the primary issues can be resolved. The critical habitat program should change to reflect the Act’s objective: securing land- scape-level management prescriptions to promote species conserva- tion. The article refers to this new approach as “An Integrated Critical Habitat Recovery Program.” I. INTRODUCTION With our foundational environmental laws approaching forty- plus years, scholars and policy-makers naturally assess the resiliency of these aging statutes. But what about the Endangered Species Act (ESA),1 which many consider “among the most popular and well-known laws ever passed by Congress?”2 Former Secretary Bruce Babbitt simply * Professor, University of Wyoming College of Law. The author would like to thank the participants at the 2013 Colloquium on Environmental Scholarship at Vermont Law School, as well as Debra Donahue and Mark Squillace, for their helpful comments and observations. I also would like to thank my research assistant Andrew Pope, as well as the editors of the Natural Resources Journal for all their assistance. 1. Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U.S.C. §§ 1531–1544 (2012). 2. Phillip A. Davis, Economy, Politics Threaten Species Act Renewal, CONG. Q. WKLY. (Jan. 4, 1992), at 16, available at http://library.cqpress.com/cqweekly/document.php?id 47 \\jciprod01\productn\N\NMN\55-1\NMN101.txt unknown Seq: 2 22-JAN-15 11:03 48 NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL Vol. 55 dubbed the law “extraordinary.”3 It is a “keystone law that infuses all our environmental laws with a sense of direction and purpose—to harmo- nize development and resource use with the protection of our natural heritage.”4 It embodies the laudable goal of conserving endangered and threatened species, as well as the “ecosystems upon which they de- pend.”5 And it surely has survived the test of time. The Act continues to experience growing pains. It has transitioned through several phases of development, with each phase attempting to enhance conservation ef- forts. But lately, the Act’s growth has stuttered.6 Instead of providing direction and purpose for the environmental legal system, new initia- tives address peripheral issues and support orchestrated conservation ef- forts that avoid listing species under the Act.7 The ESA nevertheless enjoys sufficient growth potential. The designation of critical habitat (CH),8 in section 4 of the ESA, is one such example. Critical habitat con- tains physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the =WR102405733. See generally REBUILDING THE ARK: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON ENDANGERED SPE- CIES ACT REFORM (Jonathan H. Adler ed., 2011); THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT AND FEDER- ALISM: EFFECTIVE CONSERVATION THROUGH GREATER STATE COMMITMENT (Kaush Arha & Barton H. Thompson, Jr. eds., 2011); ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: LAW, POLICY, AND PERSPEC- TIVES (Donald C. Baur & WM. Robert Irvin eds., 2d ed. 2010); THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT AT THIRTY: VOL. 1: RENEWING THE CONSERVATION PROMISE (Dale D. Goble, J. Michael Scott, & Frank W. Davis eds., 2005); SAM KALEN & MURRAY FELDMAN, ESA: ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT (2d ed. 2012); BALANCING ON THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION: THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT AND LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE (Kathryn A. Kohm ed., 1991); RICHARD LITTELL, ENDANGERED AND OTHER PROTECTED SPECIES: FEDERAL LAW AND REGULATION (1992); DANIEL J. ROHLF, THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: A GUIDE TO ITS PROTECTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION (1989); Oliver A. Houck, The Endangered Species Act and Its Implementation by the U.S. Departments of Inte- rior and Commerce, 64 U. COLO. L. REV. 277 (1993); James C. Kilbourne, The Endangered Spe- cies Act Under the Microscope: A Closeup Look from a Litigator’s Perspective, 21 ENVTL. L. 499 (1991). 3. Bruce Babbitt, Lecture, The Future Environmental Agenda for the United States, 64 U. COLO. L. REV. 513, 518 (1993). 4. BRUCE BABBITT, TO REAUTHORIZE THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: WHY, WHERE AND HOW WE SHOULD TRANSLATE OUR SUCCESS STORIES INTO LAW 4 (1997) (on file with author). 5. Congress’ stated purpose was, in part, “to provide a means whereby the ecosys- tems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be con- served . .” 16 U.S.C. § 1531(b). The Ninth Circuit observed “Congress enacted the ESA and NEPA for the purpose of protecting the ecosystem for future generations.” Mount Gra- ham Coal. v. Thomas, 53 F.3d 970, 974 (9th Cir. 1995). Earlier congressional efforts to pro- tect endangered species lacked sufficient protection and conservation mechanisms. See generally Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, Pub. L. No. 89-669, 80 Stat. 926; Endangered Species Conservation Act of December 5, 1969, Pub. L. No. 91-135, 83 Stat. 275. 6. For an interesting account of ESA initiatives during different administrations, see generally J.B. Ruhl, Endangered Species Act Innovations in the Post-Babbittonian Era—Are there Any?, 14 DUKE ENVTL. L. & POL’Y F. 419 (2004). 7. See infra notes 265–273 and accompanying text. R 8. 16 U.S.C. § 1533(a)(3)(A)(i) (2012). \\jciprod01\productn\N\NMN\55-1\NMN101.txt unknown Seq: 3 22-JAN-15 11:03 Fall 2014 INTEGRATED CRITICAL HABITAT RECOVERY PROGRAM 49 species and which may require special management considerations or protection. CH has the potential to meaningfully address the original ESA goal of conserving ecosystems critical to species survival as well as recovery. Since the 1980s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) have emphasized the impor- tance of habitat protection under the Act.9 For example, the agencies charged with administering the Act recently developed a targeted rule to protect species by using “habitat alterations” as a surrogate for measur- ing harm to species.10 The FWS Director, Dan Ashe, recently spoke about the “age-old nemesis of habitat loss and fragmentation” and the need to “think on a landscape level,” examining “all the pieces in an ecological system.”11 Indeed, planning and mitigation on a landscape level has be- come a dominant theme of the Obama administration’s Interior Depart- ment.12 But the CH program, a provision tailored to conserve habitat and explore meaningful landscape level conservation, has languished until quite recently. In the mid-1990s, CH finally began emerging from its for- merly maligned state. During the past few years, FWS designated two of the largest CHs in ESA history: First, it designated habitat for the iconic polar bear;13 and second, it recently designated lands for the symbolic 9. See infra notes 254–265 and accompanying text. R 10. See Incidental Take Statements, 78 Fed. Reg. 54,437, 54,437–48 (proposed Sept. 4, 2013) (to be codified at 50 C.F.R. pt. 402). 11. Milo Mason, Interview: Daniel M. Ashe, 27 NAT. RESOURCES & ENV’T 44, 46 (2013). Director Ashe further explained: I think the 90s we were fond of talking about ecosystems. Landscape con- servation is a better term because it is not just science, it’s not just under- standing what it takes to be a good ecologist or biologist, and understanding how to manage an ecosystem—assuming that you can do that. But it’s really understanding what makes a landscape tick. [It] encompasses . the biological, the ecological, the sociological and politi- cal aspects. Id. at 45. 12. See SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, ORDER NO. 3330: IMPROVING MITIGATION POLICIES AND PRACTICES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR (Oct. 31, 2013), available at http:// www.doi.gov/news/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=380602; see also Alan Kovski, Impacts on Public Lands To Be Mitigated with ‘Landscape-Level’ Measure, Jewell Says, BNA DAILY ENV’T REP., Nov. 1, 2013, at A–2, available at http://www.bna.com/daily-envi- ronment-report-p4751/; Phil Taylor, Agency Bids to Speed Land-Use Planning, Address Larger Landscapes, GREENWIRE (Apr. 24, 2014), available at http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/sto- ries/1059998413. A focus on landscape level protection became a dominant theme of Dep- uty Secretary David Hayes before he left office. See DAVID J. HAYES, ADOPTING A LANDSCAPE-LEVEL APPROACH TO MANAGING OUR NATION’S PUBLIC LANDS AND OPEN SPACES (2013) available at http://west.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/DJHayes_Lane_Center_ Speech-20130430.pdf.
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